Books About Divorce & Family Change
Stories about divorce, separation, and blended families — helping kids understand that family changes are not their fault.
186 books
This collection of 186 books about divorce & family change spans Grade 1–9. Reading level alone doesn't tell parents whether a book is right for a child — text difficulty and emotional weight grow at different rates, especially for gifted, twice-exceptional, or sensitive readers. HootRated rates every book on this list for both, so you can match to your child's actual readiness on both axes.
Across this list, 25% of titles are rated Gentle or Mild — appropriate for sensitive readers or kids reading ahead of their emotional comfort zone. 4% are rated Intense or Very Intense, with heavier thematic territory for readers ready to tackle weighty subjects. Average content intensity for the list is 2.8/5.
Use the intensity badges (color-coded green → red) to filter by emotional readiness rather than just age. For more on what each intensity level means, see our rating methodology.
Crispin and the 3 Little Piglets
Ted Dewan
Frozen
Elle D. Risco
John F. Kennedy
Hourly History
Love in the Library
Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Kyle's Little Sister
BonHyung Jeong
The Storm in the Barn
Unknown
The First Brothers
Joan E. Curren
O Little Town (Hopes and Dreams, the Germans)
Tana Reiff
Everett Anderson's 1-2-3
Lucille Clifton
Karen's Two Families
Ann M. Martin
Almost home
Joan Bauer
Bookclub Presenter
Marilyn Herbert, Samantha Bailey
Broken Chains (Uptown Downtown Series)
Fearon
Karen's stepmother
Ann M. Martin
Tall Tales
Karen Day
Karen's turkey day
Ann M. Martin
Looking for Dad
Ellen Frances
Mary Anne Breaks the Rules
Ann M. Martin
Paula Danziger's Amber Brown is On the Move
Bruce Coville, Paula Danziger, Elizabeth Levy
Tomboy : a graphic memoir
Liz Prince
The many troubles of Andy Russell
David A. Adler
Mary Anne to the rescue
Ann M. Martin
Our Canadian Girl Penelope #2 the Glass Castle
Sharon E Mckay
Popularity Paper Vol. 4
Amy Ignatow
Three against the tide
D. Anne Love
I remember the Alamo
D. Anne Love
Kate
Jean Little
Little Miss Strange
Joanna Rose
Ghetto cowboy
Greg Neri
One true way
Shannon Hitchcock
Poor Mallory! (The Baby-Sitters Club #39)
Ann M. Martin
Pure Spring
Brian Doyle
Sara lost and found
Virginia Castleman
Thief Girl
Ingrid Lee
Zoli's Legacy
Dawn L. Watkins
Gaby, lost and found
Angela Cervantes
Little women
Mary Sebag-Montefiore
Chasing the Milky Way
Erin E. Moulton
Epileptic
David B.
Slant
Laura E. Williams
After the ashes
Sara K. Joiner
Dear America:My Heart is on the Ground: the Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl, Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania, 1880
Ann Rinaldi
Drugs (Understanding Issues)
Gail Stewart
Treasured Thief
Ryan Foley
Understanding Issues - Divorce (Understanding Issues)
Gail B. Stewart
Wait for me
An Na
A dog called Homeless
Sarah Lean
Farewell, Dawn
Ann M. Martin
In my father's house
Ann Rinaldi
Mustang Flats
G. Clifton Wisler
Adrian and the Tree of Secrets
Hubert
BIRD; TRANS. BY JENNY WANG MEDINA.
CHONG-HUI O
Because of Winn-Dixie
Kate DiCamillo
Becky's brainstorm
Elaine L. Schulte
Children and HIV/AIDS
Gary R. Anderson
Dear Canada: Orphan at My Door: The Home Child Diary of Victoria Cope, Guelph, Ontario, 1897
Jean Little
Early Sunday Morning
Barry Denenberg
Goodbye Marianne (Flyways)
Irene N. Watts
How it feels to have a gay or lesbian parent
Judith E. Snow
Jo's story
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Little Women
Deanna McFadden
Nowhere to Hide
Kim Sigafus
Pieces of the picture
Barbara M. Joosse
Reena
Manjit Virk
So Far Bamboo Grove Related Readings Gr7 (The Glencoe literature library)
GLENCOE
The Night Swimmers
Betsy Byars
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Until the End of Summer
Elizabeth Ogilvie
Whispers in the Graveyard
Theresa Breslin
A boy called Bat
Elana K. Arnold
Have I found a gold mine?
Priscilla Galloway
The Cat King of Havana
Toms Kreicbergs
The war between the classes
Gloria D. Miklowitz
All that glitters
Laura Dower
Leaving Glorytown
Eduardo F. Calcines
Little women
Louisa May Alcott
Lost and found
Anne E. Schraff
The summer I wasn't me
Jessica Verdi
Whatever happened to Janie?
Caroline B. Cooney
Anne Hutchinson
Elizabeth Raum
The Desperate Search (An American Adventure, Book 2)
Lee Roddy
The air down here
Gil C. Alicea
The pants project
Cat Clarke
What Janie found
Caroline B. Cooney
Children of exile
Margaret Peterson Haddix
Never missing, never found
Amanda Panitch
Okay for now
Gary D. Schmidt
Sins of the father
Norah McClintock
The secret garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The secret life of Prince Charming
Deb Caletti
Treasure Hunters
James Patterson
Matilda
Roald Dahl
My lost and found life
Melodie Bowsher
When the World Turned Upside Down
K. Ibura
American Betiya
Anuradha D. Rajurkar
Diamonds in the shadow
Caroline B. Cooney
Dust
Christine Bongers
Highland mercies
Gary E. Parker
Romeo blue
Phoebe Stone
Unbound
Ann E. Burg
What they found
Walter Dean Myers
Prince William
Tamara L. Britton
Ramona and her father
Beverly Cleary
Sins of the Fathers
Chris Lynch
The emperor of any place
Tim Wynne-Jones
Prince William
Elaine Landau
The beginning of after
Jennifer Castle
The long winter
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little house in Brookfield
Maria D. Wilkes
On Top Of Concord Hill
Maria D. Wilkes
Have a nice day
Julie Halpern
Lady J (Drama High)
L. Divine
Otherwise known as Possum
Maria D. Laso
Sally Hemings
Frances E. Ruffin
Braving the fire
John B. Severance
Cat running
Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Influenced
Sarah Darer Littman, Cindy L Otis
Let the circle be unbroken
Mildred D. Taylor
Roll of thunder, hear my cry
Mildred D. Taylor
A Little Tiger in the Chinese Night
Song Nan Zhang
Romeo's Ex
Lisa Fiedler
Crowfeather's trial
Erin Hunter
Prince William
Kristin McCracken
The Wednesday wars
Gary D. Schmidt
Across Five Aprils
Irene Hunt
Alis
Naomi Rich
Amil and the After
Veera Hiranandani
Clara Callan
Richard Bruce Wright
Covenant
Abraham Verghese
Dream on, Amber (reissue)
Emma Shevah
Education, Exclusion and Citizenship
Carl Parsons
Emily for Real
Sylvia Gunnery
Eyes
Sakae Tsuboi
Families Without Fathers
David Popenoe
Kendra
Coe Booth
Little Cricket
Jackie Brown
Mourning a Father Lost
Avraham Balaban
Mukhtar's Children
Sally Watson
Outsider Kids
Betty C. Tang
Places We Sleep
Caroline DuBois
Secret World of Sex
Steve Humphries
Seed Time (Signature)
Nick Manns
Sorta Sisters
Adrian Fogelin
Subject to Change
Karen Nesbitt
The Legacy
Lurlene Mcdaniel
The Magic Fish
Trung Le Nguyen
The Stone Goddess
Minfong Ho
The dream of water
Kyoko Mori
The pull of gravity
Gae Polisner
Walking on Air
Kelly Easton
Wandering Souls
Cecile Pin
Youth in cities
Marta Tienda, William Julius Wilson
China's son
Chen, Da
Marilyn Monroe
Katherine E. Krohn
Coping with interracial dating
Renea D. Nash
Mary, Bloody Mary
Carolyn Meyer
Stones For My Father
Trilby Kent
The House of Djinn
Suzanne Fisher Staples
I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to the Blindsind and beyond
Michael Oher, Don Yaeger
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini
Anne of Green Gables
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Belonging
Michelle Miller
Bindi
Paul Matthew Maisano
Esperanza rising
Pam Muñoz Ryan
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
Mending Horses
M. P. Barker
Social Intercourse
Greg Howard
Supernormal
Meg Jay
Coping as a biracial/biethnic teen
Renea D. Nash
This side of paradise
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Washington Square
Henry James
Louisa May Alcott
Karen Clemens Warrick
City of Strangers
Robert Barnard
The Beautiful and Damned
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Shirley Temple Black
Jean F. Blashfield
America Pathways to the Present
Andrew Robert Lee Cayton
Indivisible
Daniel Aleman
Katz-Cohen
Samuel Astrachan
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
The Bee Gees
Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook, Andrew Môn Hughes
White Gardenia
Belinda Alexandra
Everything You Need to Know About Custody
Claudia B. Manley
Flags in the dust
William Faulkner
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Hull
Tobey Maguire
John F. Wukovits
Coping with schizophrenia
Evelyn B. Kelly
Questions parents ask about this list
- What's on this books about divorce & family change list?
- Books About Divorce & Family Change contains 186 books spanning Grade 1–9. Stories about divorce, separation, and blended families — helping kids understand that family changes are not their fault. Every book on the list is rated for reading level and content intensity so you can pick what matches your child.
- What age range is appropriate for this list?
- Books on this list span Grade 1–9. 47 books (25%) are rated Gentle or Mild; 7 (4%) are rated Intense or Very Intense. Average intensity is 2.8/5. Match the intensity badge to your child's emotional readiness.
- How is this list curated?
- HootRated rates every book on this list for both reading level (text difficulty) and content intensity (emotional weight) — the two axes parents need to choose books. See our methodology for how books make a curated list.